It’s time to rethink your endpoint security strategy. Navigating today’s threat landscape requires having market-leading technologies that can protect you from all vectors of attack, while not compromising on business continuity. Here we discuss five key questions you should add to your checklist when you evaluate your next endpoint security vendor.

Ransomware strikes without warning. It penetrates your organization through the web, email, or removable media devices. Without focused ransomware detection, you run the risk of an attack bypassing your traditional security products. The impact of a successful ransomware attack can be devastating; it is estimated that only in 2019, the cost of ransomware to enterprises could have exceeded $7.5 billion.1

The good news: with the right Anti-Ransomware solution, ransomware can be prevented.

Your endpoint security solution should constantly monitor for ransomware specific behaviors and automatically identify illegitimate file encryption. And, in the case of a ransomware attack, all malicious elements should be quarantined and encrypted files automatically restored, not impacting business continuity.

2. How do I ensure all incoming files are safe without impacting employees’ productivity?

In a fast-paced world, organizations cannot allow themselves to waste any minute on inspecting incoming files from email, web or removable devices, and yet, allowing files to be downloaded to users’ PCs and laptops before engines inspect them is a risk that organizations cannot take.

Your endpoint security solution must have an automatic file sanitization feature, also known as Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR) or Threat Extraction. This way, attacks are proactively prevented by removing exploitable content from documents, while delivering sanitized versions of the files within seconds to ensure business continuity.

3. Is my endpoint security suite protecting my organization from phishing attacks, even the ones that have never been seen before (i.e. Zero-Day phishing)?

Humans are the weakest link in the cybersecurity kill chain. And in an era where social engineering is constantly used by hackers to trick unsuspecting users into providing sensitive information, staying one step ahead of hackers becomes even more critical.

In order to properly combat this trend, you must have a solution in place that prevents credential theft and fraud, also for unknown phishing sites.

Is it a real attack? How did it get in? What is the business impact? How to clean my systems? Your endpoint security solution needs to have the ability to automatically answer those questions; quickly triage events, contain infections, fully sterilize the systems, and provide your IT admins with full visibility and insights into the attack.

Traditional Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) can detect suspicious behaviors, but typically they have little out-of-the-box rules with automatic remediation. Having high-quality detection rules in your EDR instantly helps understanding security events to prevent future attacks. Receiving actionable insights and automating workflows can significantly reduce the amount of time your SOC team spends analyzing incidents, allowing them to focus on more critical tasks.

5. Is my endpoint security being handled by yet another vendor, or can I consolidate it with my network, cloud and mobile operation?

In these times where the attack surfaces of organizations keep growing with the migration to the cloud and the remote workforce reality, having to deal with the complexity of multiple vendors is the right formula for security failure.

Figure 5: SandBlast Agent is a part of Check Point Infinity, a consolidated Security Architecture that protects against the most sophisticated attacks across networks, cloud, endpoint, mobile and IoT

An endpoint security suite that has a tight integration with network, cloud and mobile has enormous benefits:

Simplified management, having a one-stop-shop to manage all your security infrastructure

Lower TCO, as you will need less resources in your IT administration and SOC to manage your organization’s security

Not all endpoint security solutions are created equal

SandBlast Agent, with Anti-Ransomware, CPU-level threat emulation and automatic file sanitization, Zero-Phishing and powerful forensics and analytics, is the only solution that fully protects your organization from the ever-evolving threat landscape, while not compromising on business continuity. SandBlast Agent also provides the overall highest threat catch rate – 99.12% – as seen on the 2020 NSS Labs Advanced Endpoint Protection (AEP) where we obtained an AA rating.